


Radio Interference

by sikeykins



Category: Original Work
Genre: Aliens, Canon Autistic Character, Conspiracy Theories, LGBTQ Character, Multi, NaNoWriMo, Nonbinary Character, Trans Female Character, as in the entire cast is not straight, if they were all human none of them would be white, more like....characters..., okay characters who make very not okay decisions, the aliens come from a society where gender doesnt exist they just have pronouns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-01 06:34:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12699363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sikeykins/pseuds/sikeykins
Summary: Radio, a 33-year-old radio object head and his buddy (roommate), Upton, find something strange one night while exploring some strange sounds Radio has been picking up on his channels.





	1. Update 1

**Author's Note:**

> lets start off my nanowrimo project in which i FINALLY USE MY CHARACTERS FOR SOMETHING FUCK
> 
> uhhhhhhhhhhh its gonna be super irregular update schedule ((i am a SUper Busy Boy)) but each 'chapter' is just going to be the days i update..... ive been working on this on n off since the 3rd but guess who never uploaded it (this guy) ,,, if i dont finish this by november ill keep posting it it just means i ,,, didnt win nanowrimo lmao 
> 
> i cant think of any extreme warnings for this but if something happens in a chapter ill be sure to write a warning in the note section 
> 
> have fun guys !!! comments are appreciated n i loved 2 hear what everyone thinks,,, lets get into this mess

           When you really think about it, Earth was kind of a weird place. There was no “set species” - there were hundreds of different species, with their own little categories and everything just got weird and messy. Look at the inhabitants! There were the animal kingdom, like the dogs and the cats and the - whatever pets some people keep. There were human beings, then were the plant people (that doesn’t need to be described right? They’re just people, but like plants. It’s simple. Frankie’s a plant person!) Then there were ones who looked like werewolves or harpies or things like that. And oh! Who could forget about the object heads, who kind of looked like old school cartoons?  

            Object heads like Radio - it’s kind of easy to guess what _his_ head is. That’s right. A radio. His moms, Video and Nancy, thought they were being hilarious when they named him Radio - his last name was _Star_ , after all. Very clever.

            Whoops! Off tangent again, eh? Unfortunately. Radio has a tendency to let his thoughts wander. The basic point of this train of thought has been: Why does everyone, especially movie makers, just think that alien planets are just going to have the one species? They probably have thousands! Look at Earth, after all. Earth has so many species that not even its inhabitants know how many there are! That’s wild, isn’t it? Super wild.

            The chime of the store bell jingling snapped Radio out of his thoughts; he straightened up at the noise, attempting to spot the culprit. Over in the freezer section, a young girl with kinked, curly black hair tied in pigtails pointed her finger up at a bottle of soda; the girl’s mother slid open the freezer door, grabbing hold of one of the soda bottles and handing it over to her sweet daughter. How cute!

            There was some movement in an aisle closer to the door, and another object head was observing the types of 4.9-hour energy products scattered in sparse gaps (it was nearing one in the morning, most college kids had swiped the 4.9-hour energy products).

            Radio found himself letting out that subtle breath-laugh _thing_ everyone does when he connected the irony that the other object head was, funny enough, a UFO toy head, and Radio just been thinking of aliens. In fact, Radio was always thinking about aliens. He moved down to Switchblade Heights, Arizona (dragging his poor sister Evelyn with him) for the sole purpose of going on missions to see if he could find any evidence. Well, not that there _wasn’t_ any evidence, but Radio wanted his _own_ evidence that he can proudly say _he_ found and justified the existence of aliens. And, Arizona was a hot spot for it! Area 51 and all that.  

            Radio’s view of the stranger was obscured when the woman and her daughter approached the counter; the woman looked exhausted, though she smiled feebly despite that her exhaustion. Her daughter yawned beside her as she placed the soda drink on the counter.

            “What brings you to Count-Yer-Cash today, ma’am?” Radio hummed lightly as he scanned the soda bottle, “That’ll be one-fifty.”

            “Road trip. I’m driving out to meet family at another house,” The woman responded wearily, handing the dollar bill and two quarters to Radio, who promptly dropped it into the register, “Thanks. Have a good night.”

            “Have a good night! To wear yourself out, ma’am - stay safe!” Radio called after the woman as she began to lead her daughter away and towards the door; the woman wove her hand back in a brief goodbye.

            Radio turned to face the other customer once more - the object head, the _UFO_ object head.

            “You in college?” Radio piped up after a few moments, earning a cross glare from the obviously tired, cranky object head, “Do you _always_ talk to the customers like this?”

            Radio grinned sheepishly, shrugging his shoulders, “It’s boring just sitting here all day. You didn’t answer the question.”

            The object head blinked at Radio, before heaving a sigh, snatching one of the small 4.9-hour-energies and trudging over to Radio, “No, I’m not. Just graduated.”

            “Oh! Cool. I never went to college,” Radio mused aloud, and when the other object head seemed ready to interrupt, Radio just charged on ahead as usual, “What did you study?”

            Narrowed eyes. Wow, this UFO was cranky.

            “Law.”

            “Ooooh, law school! Snazzy. Why are you here? You gonna solve some crimes?” Radio inquired with a little cock of his head, still beaming; the other object head merely grunted out, “Can you just ring me up?”

            Radio frowned, opening up his palm for the UFO head to drop the 4.9-hour-energy into his hand, which he scanned after a moment, “Okay, UFO, so, you don’t have a job?”

            “Don’t call me that.”

            “What? UFO?” (A nod from UFO), “Why not?”

            “Because that’s just - I hate it, okay?” UFO snapped, crossing his arms across his chest; Radio flashed UFO another cheeky, devious little grin, still holding that precious 4.9-hour-energy in his hand, “Then what _is_ your name?”

            “It’s Upton.”

            “What’s your first and last names?”

            Upton shot Radio yet another glare, defensively placing his hands on his hips, “Why do you want to know?”

            Radio shrugged, adopting a playfully teasing tone, “What am I gonna do? I’ve got the memory of a goldfish. You think I’m gonna hunt you down or somethin’?”

            Upton fidgeted, before simply muttering, “Fitzgerald Oakley. My name is Upton Fitzgerald Oakley.”

            Barking out a laugh, Radio slapped his hands palms flat on the counter below (the 4.9-hour-energy had already been placed to the side while Upton was talking), “So your initials _literally_ spell out U.F.O?”

            “Would you knock it off?” Upton snapped, “Just give me my 4.9-hour-energy, please, for fu-.”

            “But seriously, what are you doing here in Switchblade Heights?” Radio hummed as he dropped the energy drink into Upton’s hand.

            “None of your business,” Upton shot back curtly.

***

            “I met someone today,” Radio commented as he climbed into the passenger’s seat of his sister’s car; Evelyn, an EVP-object head, yawned, tired as always, “Who’s that?”

            “Upton. He’s a literal UFO head.”

            Evelyn snorted as she revved up the car, pulling away from the gas station and onto the road, dimly lit by the gray dawn sky, “That so?”

            Radio nodded, before yawning himself and leaning against the window, “I think I need to nap.”

            “S’fine.”

***

            They lived about thirty minutes away from Count-Yer-Cash. In fact, they lived about ten minutes away from the center of the city; they had bought a cheap, dingy old house, plopped firmly in the middle of nowhere. It was affordable - barely. But, Radio had been able to save plenty by not going to college; Evelyn hadn’t attended college either, but that was because she had been saving up. Evelyn was only twenty-three (so was Radio - they were twins), and she didn’t want to rush straight into college if she knew full well she couldn’t afford it. Neither did Radio, but in all honesty, Radio didn’t _want_ to go to college. It wasn’t because of his autism - he knew he was capable of doing it (Evelyn was autistic too, and she was going to do it, wasn’t she?) but it just - it was never _fun_ for him. Radio didn’t really want to do something big in his life, he just wanted to live the way he wanted to live. He wanted to go out and explore in his youth. Who knows? Maybe when he was older, he would go to college. But for now? For now it was time to travel (or, not travel, more like hunting for cryptids).

***

            Radio had passed out in the car by the time Evelyn pulled the car into the dirt driveway; she stirred him awake with a light push to his shoulder, before stepping out of the car and walking around the front to meet Radio.

            “Hey, buddy, can we talk when you wake up from your nap?” Evelyn murmured as she walked with Radio up to the small porch steps towards the dusky brown front door open; Radio never did like the creaking squeak the door made when it was open - in all honesty, neither of the twins liked it. Radio shrugged his shoulders as he failed in his futile attempt to suppress his upcoming sleep-deprived yawn, “Yeah, sure.”

***

            Work: start at ten in the night, end at six in the morning. Get home half an hour later, take a nap. Wake up in the late afternoon, usually around the one to three o’clock range, and spend the rest of his day how he pleased until 9:30. That’s the way it had been for - what? Four years now? Probably. He was nineteen when he moved down here with Evelyn - at least that’s what he remembered. Sometimes Radio’s memory wasn’t exactly _reliable_ , to say the least. Evelyn. Evelyn was always a part of Radio’s average day-to-day cycle since he was born; they had done everything together. They had taken the same classes, done the same things, Radio had always dragged Evelyn around on his misadventures and Evelyn always brought her favorite things she was fixated on to Radio. It was just their natural life. Their natural way of going about their lives. They were best friends - they had been best friends for years.

            Which was why it was so jarring that today, at 3:45 in the afternoon, Evelyn had sat down across Radio on their old, stained floral patterned couch and nonchalantly stated, “I think I’m moving out.”

            Radio spluttered, jolting forwards with a startled, absolutely blindsided and puzzled echo of Evelyn’s statement, “You’re _moving out_?”

            Evelyn nodded slowly, her eyes focusing down on the carpet and her hands clasping together in her lap; the dull, filed down nails of her right hand were picking at her left hand’s cuticles. It was a nervous tick that Evelyn had picked up sometime in her twenty-three years of life that Radio couldn’t exactly pinpoint when. There was a brief, apologetic nod from Evelyn, and Radio literally felt his stomach twist into a knot and fall to the floor.

            “You’re serious?” Radio choked out after a couple of seconds passed by; when Evelyn didn’t even manage a response, Radio realized with bitter reality that she meant what she had said. Radio crossed his arms over his chest, eyes narrowing as he practically pouted, curled up on one end of the sofa, effectively squished against the arm of the chair to get as far away from Evelyn as he could.

            “Don’t be mad.”

            “I’m _not_ mad,” Radio shot back in a fussy tone, “I just don’t see why you’d wanna leave the house. We’ve got a good gig here!”

            “ _You’ve_ got a good gig here. I’m fifty-five minutes away from my job, Radio. I wanna be closer to it,” Evelyn explained after a moment, still watching her own hands as she grazing her cuticles, then at the skin of her knuckles, then moved on to scraping the russet brown skin of her arm, “Frankie’s found a place for me an’ her to share.”

            “Oh.”

            “I’ll still visit a lot! I promise!” Evelyn perked up a little, shuffling closer with a small, affectionate twinkle in her gaze, “You’re still my brother.”

            “Will you still visit me at work, too?” Radio mumbled after a couple of moments, earning an energetic nod from his sister, “Of course I will! Frankie and I will stop by every night at the start of your shift.”

            There was a hesitating pause, a stall in the conversation as Radio thought carefully over this situation, before he shot out his hand, waiting impatiently for Evelyn’s hand to meet his for a firm shake, “Fine then. It’s a deal.”

            “Deal.”

***

            “Hey, buddy,” If the ringing bell of Count-Yer-Cash – or, as Radio liked to call it, ‘Tiny Store of Terrors’ – didn’t alert Radio of Frankie’s presence, her voice certainly did. Frankie was a tall, gangly type of flower-gal, and her petals curled around her face in a fashion that reminded Radio of those mid-1920’s hairstyles girls wore back in the old days.

            She was a Hawaiian Hibiscus, colored in warm yellows and pinks that meshed perfectly together, and her cheeks were dimpled with an array of differently colored, darker freckles; she was taller, nearing six feet (she was actually taller than Radio and Evelyn), with a soft stomach she loved to flaunt in a variety of crop tops. Radio always admired the way she looked, especially her fashion – she always had a pair of headphones around her neck, which he thought was also just as cool as her fashion. No, wait. Wouldn’t that be considered fashion, too? But then again, Frankie didn’t just use the headphones for her outfit. She listened to music daily on them! Hourly, even. So would those be considered fashion or just a part of Frankie’s characteristics?

            “Earth to Space-Nut, come in Space-Nut,” Frankie’s voice snapped Radio out of his meandering trail of thoughts, “y’in there, Space-Nut? You zonin’ out again?”

            “Huh? What?” Radio blinked, trying to regain his focus once more, “Oh! Uh, yes. Yeah. I’m in here, Mission Control Panel 420.”

            Frankie snorted at the choice of numbers, leaning her weight on the counter Radio stood (im)patiently behind; Radio worked the graveyard shift, so most customers were either junkies looking for a quick snack, people just getting off or just about to go to work, or worn out college students looking for their quick pick-me-up energy drink that would set a weak enough fire under them to finish that damn essay. Frankie had managed to weasel herself in during one of those time periods where it no one was awake enough to venture out of their own beds.

            “You okay?” Frankie prompted with a tilt of her head; Radio frowned, bothered by her question. Why wouldn’t he be okay? Why did he seem not okay? Was something wrong with him that he didn’t realize? Did Frankie know something? Was he _dying_?

            “You’re just being kinda quiet,” Frankie followed up after a moment, as if reading Radio’s mind (new theory he should look into: was Frankie a mind reader?), “Plus, I don’t know if you’re upset or not about the situation with Evelyn.”

            “Oh?” A pause, “Oh.”

            Radio’s expression fell, his shoulders slumping lower as if his entire countenance had just slipped down; thinking about living on his own was honestly worrying him. He had never done it before, and he tended to get oh-so-bored easily, especially on his own; he was forgetful, too, to the point he once forgot to eat for a whole day (he was this close to catching some strange signals from outer space, though).

            “It’s gonna _suck_ having the house to myself, Frankie, I’m gonna be so bored all the time. You’ve ruined my entire family, Frankie. Soiled it and our friendship.”

            Frankie pulled a face, batting her palm against Radio’s shoulder with a scolding tone, “You’re being dramatic.”

            “You’re stealing my sister,” Radio shot back in a fussy little counter attack. He leaned his weight onto the counter, ruddy-brown arms resting on the sticky, obviously filthy tile of the top, before he finally (and reluctantly) resigned, “I know you’re not _stealing_ Evelyn, but it just sucks, okay! I _hate_ living on my own. It’s gonna be so boring. I don’t wanna drive one hundred thousand hours just to take Evelyn hiking.”

            _Hiking_ in Radio’s definition just meant hunting for the truth (as in hunting for alien facts and other evidence for various cryptids one might find in the desert of Arizona).

            “It’s a bummer, I know, but life moves on like that.”

            Frankie had always been kind of blunt. She liked to tease and dick around, but when it came to the actual serious manners, she was always dead-straight to the point, however hard it may be; she was never really consoling about anything. Some may say it was because she was too young (she was 21), or some may chalk it up to her being an inconsiderate punk kid who loved blaring tunes too loudly and too much, but in reality she just didn’t have a great sense of empathy. Or sympathy? Which word worked in this scenario? What even is the difference between empathy and sympathy? Was that a philosophical question or was that just something English majors knew inherently?

            “Radio, focus.”

            “Wh – huh? Oh, yes, right, sorry.”

            Radio wasn’t sure how Frankie could do that – just automatically tell when Radio had stopped paying attention. Did he just get really quiet? Maybe she could tell when he was staring ahead at nothing in particular and making stupid faces as he pondered life’s greatest unsolved mysteries.

            “Anyways, bucko, I gotta head out,” Frankie hummed, reaching out to rest her hand on Radio’s arm, “My shift at the club is gonna start soon.”

            A sense of pride wafted through Radio’s very core as he recalled what work Frankie was doing now; if the audience can’t guess from the context clues before, Frankie had an unquenchable passion for all things music related. It had been her dream to DJ at clubs, or make her own music later on in life when she was stable enough financially. Originally, she had been working at Count-Yer-Cash with Radio (which is subsequently how they met, they used to have a double shift together), where they would talk into the late hours of the night about whatever and whoever and music and aliens. Music and aliens. Alien music. Musical aliens. That sorta junk that they could both giggle over. Then Frankie quit – not because she was tired of it (well, she was, but so was Radio – who liked working at a convenience store?), but because she got offered her first DJ-gig at the local club. It was a milestone achievement for her. Radio felt just as proud as if his own child had just waddled on up and scratched some wicked groovy records.

            “Bye, babe, have fun watching gross sweaty youths grind to your sick beats!” Radio cooed affectionately, waving Frankie off as she slinked towards the door; Frankie waved her own hand back, shooting Radio that sunny, beaming grin of hers, clicking her tongue against her teeth before she responded, “Oh, it’s gonna be great.”

            With that, Frankie was out of the store, leaving Radio to ponder life’s greater questions. Like what the _fuck_ was the difference between empathy and sympathy?

***

            “Hey, you look smart,” Radio buzzed with giddy excitement when he saw the familiar saucer-shaped head of a certain bitter customer, “What’s the difference between sympathy and empathy?”

            Upton wheeled around on the balls of his heels at the sunshine-daisy-love tone of the store clerk behind the counter; his eyes had dark shadows beneath, and he looked like a wild animal holding a grudge against Radio and a knife in a hand, ready to kill with looks alone. But then Upton opened his mouth and all that came out was the child-like whine, “ _Why_ do you keep _talking to me_?”


	2. Update 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :") so im definitely not finishing this by the 30th lmao anyways
> 
> toTALLY had this sitting on my files for a good week and my lazy ass was just too busy to post it so uh enjoy !!!!!

            Why Upton had decided to stay in that convenience store with Radio was beyond Radio’s stretch of knowledge. He lingered by the counter, sipping on an XL-cup of energy drink mixed with painfully flat soda from the machine that pours drinks (what on earth was that thing called?). He had, of course, already paid for it, but Radio had somehow roped him into staying to and chatting about nonsense. Radio propped his head up in his palms while leaning his weight onto his elbows, watching intently as Upton took another long, drawn out sip through that bright red straw.

            “You know, my evil sister is moving out to go party with her evil friend,” Radio huffed after a moment, eyes narrowing as the thought dawned on him once more. Upton shifted to the side to shoot him a puzzled look, eliciting another reaction from Radio without even having to say a single word, “No, I shouldn’t say that. She’s not _evil_ , and Frankie’s not evil either. I just hate living on my own.”

            “Hey, be grateful you’ve got a place to stay at,” Upton chided, swirling his giant plastic cup in a way that reminded Radio of those wine glasses people twirled in those old school movies, “I’m stuck living in a hotel.”

            “Really? Why?” Radio blinked, perking up a little bit at the comment, earning an uncomfortable fidget from Upton, “Oh, uh, I lost it in that flash flood that happened last month.”

            “Oh, shit, really? That sucks dude.”

            “Yeah, I know. I’ve been trying to find another place for a while.”

            A light blanket of silence fell over Radio and Upton for a moment as the bell rang out once more, and a small, cat like creature slunk in – cat like was a loose term. They were sleek and a pale golden color, plus two wide, rounded saucer-like ears on the tops of their head, but they had no eyes – at least none that Radio could pinpoint. Probably just another one of the local monsters that wandered about this time of night.

            The customer had grasped hold of some of the Golden-Noodles (they came in cute little cups with tiny little Lucky Cats printed on them because they were cheap and saved money). Once Radio had finished ringing up the prices and gotten his money, the customer slunk out and Radio whirled around, shouting at a volume that startled Upton enough his cup slid a couple of inches (before he thankfully snatched it in the air, preventing it from colliding and emptying its sugary contents on the ground below), “ _I have an idea_!”

            “Please don’t ever shout like that again,” Upton gasped out, rushing in one panicked breath as he clutched his drink tightly in his hands. Radio beamed, rocking on his feet as he carried on in the same tone, disregarding Upton’s plead, “You could live with me!”

            “I literally just met you.”

            “So? Live with me! You know me more than roommate ads! C’mon, live with me! Live with me! Live with me! Live -,”

            “ _Okay_ , knock it off!” Upton snapped, tapping his midnight-purple fingers against the outside of his cup, obviously pondering his options, “Can you let me think about it first?”

            “What’s there to think about?” Radio deadpanned, finding himself staring at Upton’s fingers, entranced by their rhythmic tapping on the plastic layer of the cup. Upton scoffed, shooting Radio another one of those obvious looks, as if Radio just asked him if the moon was made out of cheese, “You could be a serial killer for all I know!”

            “I promise I’m not!” Radio hummed with almost child-like innocence. Upton simply rolled his eyes, leaning his back against the edge of the counter, “Reassuring. What if I was a serial killer, tormented by an insatiable, unquenchable thirst for blood?”

            “Nice adjectives, Mister Scholar. You an English major?”

            “No, actually, I studied law. I told you this yesterday.”

“Oh! Yeah!” Radio practically giggled as he recalled that same question he had asked the night prior.

Upton switched the topic back to what he had been addressing as quickly as Radio had diverged from it, “But that doesn’t answer my hypothetical.”

            “Well, are you?” Radio chirped, tipping his head to the side as he watched Upton with intrigue; Upton hesitated at the bluntness of Radio’s question, “No? Of course I’m not a serial killer.”

            “Great!” Radio exclaimed again, hopping once as if he was shocked by a jolt of electricity made of joy, “I don’t see any problems with this!”

            “Of course you wouldn’t,” Upton muttered under his breath, one hand now above his cup so he could fiddle with his straw, “Just let me think about it first, okay? I’ll give you an answer soon.”

            “How soon?”

            “Next time I see you.”

            Upton paused for a moment, digging his nails into edge of the cup, as if he were pondering something, before he ventured out on a very awkward social tree branch, “So, uh, do you have a phone?”

***

            “I asked Upton to move in with me.”

            “Who?” Frankie prompted, and even Evelyn, in her sleep-exhausted mindset, couldn’t connect that name to whoever Radio was referring to, “What are you talking about?”

            “You know! Upton! From last night!”

            “From last night…?” Evelyn paused, eyes narrowing as she attempted to connect the dots, and then, “Oh no, Radio! Come on! You can’t just ask strangers to move in with you!”

            “Wait, someone fill me in, who’s Upton?” Frankie pawed at Evelyn’s arm, trying to catch her attention once more.

            “But he’s not a stranger!” Radio shot back defiantly, ignoring Frankie’s whimper, “I know his name, and I know he went to school, and I know he needs a house!”

            “You just invited him because you think he’s cool because his head is a UFO toy.”

            “Not true! I want to live with him, I do! I hate living alone. Really, this is all your fault.”

            “ _My_ fault?”

            Frankie watched from where she hovered behind Evelyn, gaze darting between Radio and Evelyn as the two twins bickered back and forth, absolutely baffled by what the hell was going on. She didn’t even know who Upton was.

            “Okay, okay, guys!” Frankie stepped forward, standing firm between the counter where Radio sorely waited behind and Evelyn, “Can someone please explain to me who Upton is?”

            “He’s some guy Radio met literally last night in the gas station.”

            Radio folded his arms across his chest, jutting out one hip as he glared at Evelyn as if he were rebelling against her nonexistent authority, “I know him more than if I just put roommate ads in the paper or online or somethin’!”

            “That’s not the _point_ , Radio!” Evelyn groaned, running her hands down her face in exasperation.               

            “I don’t get the point, then,” Radio complained in a blank tone, shoulders drooping as his sister only grew more and more frustrated as the little fit of an argument progressed; he watched his sister with pitiful, puzzled eyes, genuinely upset because, hey, fighting with Evelyn actually sucked a lot. In fact, Radio even considered Frankie and Evelyn his best friends; they were the only friends he actually enjoyed talking to on a daily basis. Everyone else got kind of grating.

            Radio frowned, swaying sulkily behind the counter and rubbing his palms against his shoulders, hidden beneath the red cloth of his starchy uniform shirt, “Are you really mad with me?”

            After a moment of hesitation, Evelyn heaved a sigh and stepped forward, reaching out to rest her hand over the top of Radio’s right hand, fingers ghosting lightly across the scraped skin as she pulled her hand away, almost hovering, before letting it fall to her side, “I’m not mad with you.”

            “Promise?”

            “Uhuh. I just think it’s really really stupid.”

            “I know.”

            “Like super stupid. He’s a stranger.”

            Radio reached out his hand, wiggling his fingers to grab Evelyn’s attention, who had slipped into mumbling below her breath (she tended to ramble under her breath when she was annoyed), “Shake on it.”

            “Shake on what?” Evelyn muttered, her hands on her hips as Radio simply beamed back at her, “Shake on the fact that you’re not mad at me.”

            Evelyn didn’t bother with a verbal response; she simply shuffled around Frankie’s figure and plopped her hand into Radio’s palm and shook their hands together in a firm grip. Pulling a face, she snatched her hand away and leaned her shoulder against Frankie, who had just been hovering awkwardly in the middle of the bickering twins; Evelyn, just as sulky as her brother’s previous demeanor, just had to have the last word, “I still think it’s a bad idea.”

            “It’s gonna be great, Evelyn! You might even be the maid of honor at our wedding.”

            “This isn’t a dumb rom-com, Radio!” Evelyn snapped crossly, stomping her foot on the tile below, while Frankie simply snickered lightly; she bumped her gold-and-pink colored knuckles against Evelyn’s shoulder in alight tap, “C’mon, you’re gonna be late for work. Plus, I’m sure Radio wants to head home.”

            “Will you take him home? I don’t like when he drives home after not sleeping,” Evelyn blinked nervously at Radio, “I don’t want him falling asleep at the wheel.”

            “I don’t – I’m not gonna fall asleep at the wheel!” Radio shot back defensively, practically bristling at Evelyn’s comment; the quarrel didn’t progress any further as Frankie made her way to the doors of the convenience store, “C’mon, Radio, else I’m taking your car without you!”

            “No!”

***

            At 7:57 in the damn morning (Radio checked), Radio sent a message to the number Upton had programmed into his phone: **_heyy its me the Cool Inconvenience Store Guy_**


End file.
